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Sourdough Bagels - my best bake so far...

May 21, 2010 - 12:38am

rossnroller

Sourdough Bagels - my best bake so far...

I make these sourdough babies weekly, and over months have tweaked my recipe to the point where they turn out just how I like them every time. These ones were especially good, so couldn't resist taking a pic and posting.

Comments

I can tell ya, they puffed up even better with a rider of cream cheese and fresh-chopped organic garlic chives from the back garden topped with tuna, a touch of fresh-ground black pepper and a sprinkle of paprika! :)

They're obviously the result of careful testing, fine-tuning and intense flavour optimization studies, Ross! Great work!

Would you care to comment on your choice of flour? People always bark at me when I mention the words "AP flour" and "bagels" in the same sentence. I'm happy to see that your recipe calls for an AP equivalent. I would be interested in learning from a bagel connoiseur as yourself: What made you swing towards that particular flour?

Receiving such positive comments from a baker I hold in the highest esteem is truly gratifying.

I use organic 'plain flour' in my bagels, and I think this is the closest Australian flour type to the American 'AP' flour, although it may not be exactly the same.

In my breads I use only local premium quality biodynamic organic stoneground flours, and would also do so in my bagels if my chosen flour producer offered a 'plain flour' product, but they don't. So, I settle for next best, which is unbleached and 'organic', but just off the supermarket sheves.

Why plain flour and not a higher gluten, higher protein baker flour? Only because bagel dough is quite low hydration in comparison to the breads that I make and yields a relatively tight crumb that is on the chewy side, and given this, I think the spongy, softer texture plain flour imparts is preferable to the stronger structure characteristic of baker flour. Which is a complicated way of saying I think bagels are naturally chewy enough without adding to the chew factor by using baker flour.

Also, I figure that the crisp thin crust you get in bagels goes better with a slightly softer crumb. It's probably all down to personal taste, though. Seems your taste and mine coincide in this context!

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